Yurushite to Sayonara
by eienki
Summary: Forgive me just this once. I'll wait for you, so keep on living, okay? -YuuNoa-


**i.**

Fearful green eyes. A shriek. Blood, blood, blood. All thoughts vanishing in a blur of rage.

A stab of the vampire noble's sword, the alien feeling of cold metal in her chest. Blurring vision, wobbly knees; she stumbles and falls to the red-dyed battlefield.

Pain, burning, unbearable. She touches a trembling hand to her chest and bites back a scream of agony. Her fingers come away wet with bright blood.

 _No. Not yet._

 _Protect them._

 _Kimizuki-san._

 _Mitsu-chan._

 _Yoichi-kun._

Dark, unruly hair and emerald eyes filled with determination and sorrow and happiness and confusion flash through her mind, barely intelligible through the haze of pain.

 _Yuu-san._

" _ **SHINOA!"**_

There it is, the voice of that idiot cherry boy. A voice that she'll never grow tired of hearing, no matter what she says.

A voice that's usually bright and _stupid_ and cheerful and _alive_ , now raw with fear and anguish.

Why does Hyakuya Yūichirō sound so terrified, screaming her name like that?

 **ii.**

He kneels over her, her head resting on his arm, once-bright eyes shadowed with desperation and swallowing, drowning, engulfing fear.

Her bleeding heart twists some more, knowing that she's the cause.

Something warm and wet _plip_ s onto her cheek, and then another on her forehead, and another, and yet another. _Tears,_ she realizes, and before she knows it, silent droplets are trickling from her own eyes and down the sides of her face, stinging the bloodied cuts and bruises.

Because Yuu-san is crying for _her_. Yuu-san, the boy she loves more than anything else in this world, the boy who wrestles with monsters inside his mind, the boy who's stronger and brighter and more beautiful—more _broken_ —than anyone else … the boy she would give up her everything for.

She's just Hiiragi Shinoa, the pitiful girl who forgot how to feel ( _until she met him_ ) and didn't know why family was so important ( _until she met him, them_ ).

She doesn't know why he's crying for her, but it's _him_.

"Y-Yuu-san …" she chokes out. The pain intensifies, and a spurt of blood escapes her mouth as she opens it.

"No, don't talk, Shinoa—" he starts, but she stops him, and Yuu-san, waterfalls streaming from his eyes, leans closer to hear.

She smiles, a shattered and trembling one, even though everything hurts more.

 _Tell him._

"I … love you …"

 **iii.**

"Shinoa … Shinoa … _Shinoa_."

Yuu-san's being much too loud now, full-on sobbing, his face a mess of tears. Part of her wants to laugh, but she'll most likely start doing exactly what he's doing instead.

She loves him, she loves him, she loves him.

Ever since the day she admitted it to herself—or rather, ever since the day she met him—her dull world has been so full of color. She's been living just to see his smile, hear his voice, touch him to make sure he's real.

If someone had told her two years ago that this would happen, that she would end up dying for another, she would have laughed in their face.

 _I told him. I finally told him._

More tears. Spots, blue and black, blur and darken Shinoa's vision. She struggles to stay awake, but the urge to close her eyes and let the blackness fold around her is too strong.

Yuu-san opens his mouth and his lips move, but she can't hear his words that are surely tumbling and tripping over themselves.

The last thing she sees is the pure anguish and desperation and some unnameable thing in the depths of those lovely eyes—

 _What do you want to tell me?_

—and then she's gone, gone, _gone_ , falling into a bottomless, starless midnight void.

 **iv.**

He screams and cries and screams and screams, holding her unmoving, bleeding body close. His throat becomes raw, his eyes run out of tears, but the unholy, guttural screeches continue to be ripped out of him.

He doesn't know how long it's been. But he does sense the arms of Mitsuba, Kimizuki, and Yoichi restraining him, pulling away from _her_ , struggling to control his flailing attempts to wrench himself free.

 _Don't take her away, I beg you._

 _Let me stay with her._

 _Please._

 _Please._

 _ **Please.**_

 **v.**

She's sitting beside him in a field of flowers, wrapped in billowing white silk, her long lavender hair flying free. Their fingers are laced together, and Yuu doesn't remember reaching for her hand, but he doesn't pull it away.

Shinoa turns her head to face him, and he's startled by the emptiness in her copper-red eyes.

He doesn't like that look on her face.

"What's wrong?"

Instead of answering, she smiles, but it's a hollow one, and she looks like she's about to cry, with lowered eyelashes and trembling shoulders.

"Hey, Shinoa."

"What, Yuu-san?"

Before replying, he tightens his hand around hers. "We'll always be together, right? Promise me?"

Her smile becomes more real, more tearful, but she leans in close until their foreheads touch. "Of course, Yuu-san. I'll stay by your side forever," she says, eyes closed, the words barely a whisper. "I promise."

He smiles, too, but the lump in his throat grows bigger, and his eyes sting.

"I'll be here. Always."

He captures her lips with his own, and he can taste the unmistakable salt of tears— _whose?_ —as the wind and the flowers come to take her away.

 _Forgive me just this once._

 _I'll wait for you, so keep on living, okay?_

 **vi.**

He awakes with a jolt.

He's fallen asleep inside the hospital room, sitting in the chair beside the bed, his face in the sheets and his fists clenched in the white fabric. Dark, round spots dot the fabric of his sleeves.

He's crying.

On the bland white bed, she sleeps, her hair spread across the pillow. Yuu's hand is still intertwined with her cold, thin, pale one.

The soft humming and beeping of the machines and instruments trying to keep her alive fills the still, sterile air.

He bows his head.

 _Please, Shinoa._

 _Just wake up._

 **vii.**

 _Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee….._

The cardiac monitor's whine doesn't fall on deaf ears.

He jumps up, knocking over the chair, and that's the last thing he remembers before everything, once again, falls into a whirlwind of screams and despair and the _pain, pain, pain_ of knowing that he's lost his everything.

 _Shinoa._

 _Shinoa._

 _ **Shinoa.**_

 **viii.**

At her funeral, she's lying in an ivory casket filled to the brim with her favorite flowers. Her delicate hands (once wielding a faithful demon's scythe) are folded upon her chest, her lavender hair (unbound, just as in his dream) tangled with colorful petals, her copper-red eyes (he loves them so dearly) closed forever.

Yoichi and Mitsuba cry quietly, their shoulders shaking with silent sobs. Kimizuki's eyes are shadowed and pained as he stares at the ground.

Yuu doesn't cry. And not because she wouldn't want him to mourn her.

Perhaps he can't anymore.

(Her hair ribbon, that specific shade of fuschia that complements her so well, is crushed in his fist.)

 **ix.**

His heart is tired. It's a dull ache that still, occasionally, sprouts thorns and tears open the old wounds that never really closed completely.

Once upon a time, she told him to keep on living.

He did.

Years and years later, he stands in front of her monument in the flowery field. It's a slender obelisk made of glossy black granite, inscribed with gold lettering:

 _Sgt. Hiiragi Shinoa_

 _2005–2023_

 _Loved and trusted by all; a loyal soldier and fighter until the end_

" _Always and forever, for all eternity—I'll be here."_

She kept her promise, he supposes.

Her ghost stands beside him now, silent tears sliding down her beautiful face, looking exactly the same as she looked on the day she left.

She reaches out to him a thin hand, and he takes it, his own hand trembling and marked with age.

"It's time you stopped keeping me waiting, Yuu-san, don't you think?"

He goes with her.

In death, they are reunited.

 **x.**

Somewhere, in a far and distant time and universe, they come together in a field of flowers. A crown of roses, a veil of mist, rings of gold, a red thread of destiny, and a kiss that binds them.

In life, they are reunited.

 _Finally._

 _I promised I'd be by your side forever, remember?_


End file.
